Count me in with Lissa. I remember Wally’s death from…what is it now, 6 years ago? …and I don’t recall EVER hearing anyone say he faked it.
But I will say this…part of me has wondered for a very long time if he did fake it. He may have gotten himself involved in ways he regretted (not going into details) and it was the only easy escape he could find.
Yah gotta wonder. Weird.
From what I heard, WallyM17 would copy large sections out of some humor book for his posts. Apparently, the authors of the book found out and contacted the admins.
That’s all I know. A lot of dopers got had by Kaitlyn. Don’t see why the same thing couldn’t happen with Wally.
Adam
There’s an easy way to tell us apart. I’m just a whisper over five feet tall. Giraffe is taller. WAY taller.
TubaDiva is taller than I am, too. And she has red hair. In fact, I might be the shortest person on the moderation staff.
If you followed his story on and off the board, you would see that most of the witty things that he posted were stollen. I first became suspicious when he posted the Wally Tried Cybersex thread. Interestingly, I had that same story, with a few changes, printed out in my joke file drawer in my office desk long before he posted it on the SDMB. There were some other things, including his sigs that he “wrote” for others, that I had seen elsewhere. It got to the point that anytime he wrote something, I would do an internet search to see if it was already out there somewhere and most of the time it was (the sigs, cybersex story, the story about the hampster. . . .).
I wasn’t the only one to notice something was off. I think other people started calling him on his plagarized stories - I personally emailed him and asked him, nicely, about the hampster story that I found online. He never responded.
I think there were other things that made him feel he had gotten in over his head and so he took the easy, cowardly way out. IMHO, he created Amy and introduced “her” to the boards so that he would have someone to announce his death.
I had him on my ICQ and saw him log in after his death. I don’t think it was an elaborate scheme, I think he was merely a poster who amused the members of a message board with stollen stories. He was a pretty likable guy and made some friends here. I think his death was a way to cut ties.
Other posters tried to find some evidence of his death, the accident, anything. There is nothing out there. NOTHING.
You do realize that only about three of us are going to catch that. 
I caught it - am I the third?
I’m not sure that shows that this is “majority opinion.” I suspect the majority have no opinion on the matter at all. Why would anyone argue that Wally really did die if they didn’t have any real evidence of that?
I was around during WallyM7’s reign, and I even have a WallyM7 sig. I was shocked and saddened by his death. Sometime in the last year or so, I noticed a couple of allusions to the possibility that Wally’s death may have been a fake. That was the first I’d heard of it. I asked my brother, Billdo, what the deal was. He usually knows what’s going on. He said “there seems to be reason to believe that WallyM7 didn’t really die.” “What’s the reason?” I asked. “I don’t really remember,” he said. “That’s weird,” I said. “Why would he fake his own death?” “I dunno,” said Bill. And that was that. I didn’t care enough to look into it further. So, count me as one who has no opinion on the matter.
But you still hate Hitler, right?
He also has a prehensile tongue.
Sure we do.
Damn Hitler! Get off my lawn!
I had no idea his death wasn’t confirmed either. I mean, we added the Wally smiley…I assumed someone here knew him in real life.
What was there “off the board”? IIRC that was before the Fathom board no? Maybe in #straightdope chat, but what else was there?
If there was a legal matter at hand and if these friends he made were starting to turn on him I can totally see him suddenly diappearing and everything. It’s the “Amy” sock that’s odd. IIRC she made an appearance many many months before his"death". If she was merely a contrivance to introduce his death story, it certain seems like there was an awful lot of forethought going on.
If I recall correctly, Wally never attended any SDMB events and nobody on the board, other than his daughter, ever claimed to have known him offline.
No one knew him in real life. A couple of dopers were going to be where he lived and meet him in real life. Right before this meeting he “died.”
It was only a couple of weeks.
Nope. “Amy” registered on 6-05-00. Wally “died” on 6-20-00.
The notification thread is no longer available. I believe that the notification thread was made my a former mod (and current SDSAB member) from a phone call from another member who received an email notification from “Amy” that said that Wally had died.
I see. Thanks.
I talked to Wally in #sd at least a couple times. He seemed like a nice (and very funny) guy. He didn’t only post plagiarized stories; most of his posts pretty ordinary.
I kept an eye on the Toronto newspaper obits for a time following his death. Never saw anything remotely resembling Wally. Doesn’t really prove anything one way or the other, though.